REDEMPTION GREATER THAN CREATION.
By Chas. B. Reynolds
Is it not strange that first-day advocates, who claim that their faith and practice are founded on the doctrines set forth in the New Testament, and that their sole desire is to glorify Jesus and obey his teachings, should be so oblivious to his most plain and oft-repeated declarations? We read: “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” John 5:30. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish his work.” John 4:34. “For I came down from Heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” John 6:38. “My Father is greater than I.” John 14:28. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” Matt. 7:21. Despite these and very many similar declarations by our Lord, it is gravely asserted: “Redemption is greater than creation, and therefore it was that Christ changed the Sabbath to the first-day of the week.” This is simply asserting that Christ came to destroy the eternal memorial of creation, established by his Father as the sign between himself and his children forever; that he did annul and efface that memorial; and, further, that he instructed his disciples to trample upon and despise the sacred seventh day, so blessed and hallowed by the Father. This is teaching that all Christians should make the seventh day a day of secular work, instead of abstaining from labor upon it; and that in its place they should observe the first day of the week, a day that ignores alike the Creator and the work of creation, and by keeping which they honor and glorify the Son at the expense of the Father. Oh! well might our Lord exclaim, “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Surely they do not stop to think—do not realize their blasphemy. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”